The Chess Computer Review

In our ‘warts and all’ tour of chess computers it’s difficult to find a wart with this model. And in general Novag have done very well with many of their computers. But with the Citrine’s price tag a little dizzying, the Ruby’s look and feel a little old fashioned (poor graphics being the largest negative), the Carnelian II is well priced and performs like GM Nigel Short in a fraction of the time. Initially this electronic chess machine is slightly dissapointing in the synthetic wood cabinet (the pieces are genuine sheesham wood) - but really we expect our programmed chess opponent to be a little less than ‘real’. The knowledge that the Novag cabinet contains highly complex electronics is reassuring and when it takes our pawn, bishops, rooks… and our King, at least we can taunt it for being just a piece of plastic and not being able to replicate the triumph in a duel of table tennis or white water rafting. The pieces in sheesham wood are lightly magnetised in order to operate the reed switches under the board surface (invisible). They could be a little better quality - more detail, more intrinsic or auxiliary weighting, but at least they are real wood, they’re good. The LED’s on the board’s x and y axis aid quicker recognition of where to move for the computer than reading an LCD algebraic reference, this is a significant improvement on cheaper press sensory models.

The list of specification from Novag (altered to avoid the obvious promotional language) is: